Used
by Camberleigh Fauconbridge
Summary: After the disastrous attempted robbery, Thénardier tells Montparnasse to find Éponine, who has disappeared. Tragic, angsty, violent one-shot.


**Samantha Barks as Éponine and Douglas Booth as Montparnasse. I've never seen any of Douglas Booth's films, but from what I've seen of images from _Great Expectations_, he looks the part of Montparnasse. I can't speak of his acting, though.**

* * *

Éponine ran without knowing where she was going. The streets and alleys turned into a blur. All she could hear was the blood pounding in her ears and her ragged, terrified breathing.

She'd ruined a heist.

She had never done that before. Éponine was always the outwardly-obedient but inwardly-defiant one; which, once she thought about it, was useless.

But—

Marius had been in the garden of the townhouse. The Lark had been there as well, yes; but Marius had been there, and could have gotten hurt. He also would have seen her involvement.

So she warned them. It was almost unintentional: Brujon was holding a knife to her throat and pressing a thick arm against her diaphragm and she couldn't breathe and he was going to kill her and a scream just... came out.

The men had scattered then. She had been thrown to the ground, a few droplets of blood on her neck and her diaphragm desperately trying to correct itself within her body.

Then Marius and the Lark had come running out of the garden and saw her. Marius seeing her was bad enough, but when she made eye contact with the Lark, Éponine wished she was anywhere but there. She couldn't stand the look of pity in the Lark's eyes. They had changed so much: now the Lark was the rich one, and Éponine was the one being beaten.

Then the Lark's father called to her, and after a last glance towards Éponine and Marius, the Lark disappeared back into the townhouse. Marius turned to help Éponine, but she was already halfway down the street. He called out to her but she didn't stop.

So now she was running for her life, completely lost, panicked that her father was going to materialize out of thin air. She didn't have enough strength to fight him.

Then she heard someone behind her. Were they following her? _God, please don't let it be my father, please, he'll kill me..._

But, as it turned out, it wasn't her father.

In a pitch-black alleyway, a hand suddenly gripped her arm. She screamed, but another hand was roughly pressed against her mouth, stifling the sound. The person shoved her against a brick wall. "What the bloody _hell_ were you thinking, 'Ponine?"

Montparnasse.

"Do you have any idea what you did? We could have gotten a fortune with all the money in that house! I was willing to put aside your father's vendetta for this millionaire, but you didn't have anything to protect in that house! Why did you do it, 'Ponine?" Montparnasse's hand was lifted from her mouth. He reached into a pocket in his vest and pulled out a pocketknife.

"'Parnasse, be careful with that—"

"I'm waiting for an answer."

She couldn't stopped herself from shaking, even though she knew that was what he wanted. There was no use in lying. "You remember that young man who used to live next to my family, in the Gorbeau House?"

"I believe so." Montparnasse's dark eyes were cold. "What was his name, Marcus—"

"His name is Marius," she couldn't help but snap.

"Ah, now I remember." His voice was become dangerously calm. "M. Marius, that pretty boy who you had taken a liking to. I assume you still do."

Éponine closed her eyes, hating herself for revealing it to Montparnasse. Then Montparnasse violently shook her so she was forced to open her eyes. "Look at me when I'm talking to you, damn it!"

"Now—" The pocketknife just brushed the sensitive skin of her neck. "Am I to assume that your pretty boy was in the house we tried to raid?"

She utterly loathed herself. "Y— yes."

"So that's why you screamed, to warn him. You didn't want your rich lover to get his face messed up. Now it's perfectly clear." She could see rage building in his cold eyes. "I thought we all knew that loyalty to the Patron-Minette came above everything else."

Even though she knew that she would make the situation even worse if she spoke, she couldn't stop herself. "Maybe I don't want to be part of all your robberies! Maybe I want something better for my life than working with you!"

"When did this start?" Montparnasse spat. "When your pretty boy filled your head with worthless ideals? Life doesn't work that way, 'Ponine!"

She tried to speak, tried to come back with a retort, but Montparnasse seemed to be fed up.

"I think someone needs to show you where you stand," Montparnasse hissed as he started fumbling with her skirts. "You've gotten too high-and-mighty, and you need to be shown that you are nothing more than a whore. You are not going to be loved by your pretty boy, you will never be his equal. You are a bitch, that's all you are."

Then his trousers were undone and he was inside of her. She pressed the back of her hand against her mouth and tried to swallow a scream. He wanted to hear her cry out in pain, and she wasn't going to give it to him.

"You are nothing, 'Ponine, and you need to realize it." Montparnasse's voice was rough and brutal. "All you are good for is spreading your legs."

Damn these tears. "'Parnasse..." Éponine choked out, but couldn't say anything else.

Montparnasse smiled grimly. "I want to see you beg. I want to see you know how it feels to be degraded." Montparnasse's hand slid to the back of her neck and gripped the hair at the base of her skull roughly.

"I'm— not going— to—"

He slapped her then, hard. "If I say you're going to beg, then you will. I control you, 'Ponine, no matter what you think in your idiotic Utopian fantasy. Or would you like a few scars to show your lover? I bet your Marius wouldn't want to see you then."

"'_Parnasse_—" She was sobbing now.

"You're ugly in the first place, so a few well-placed scars wouldn't make that much over a difference."

She couldn't suppress a scream then, and was tremblingly violently.

"Do what I say, 'Ponine!" he snarled.

"All right!" she finally managed to say. "_All right!_ 'Parnasse, please, just stop—"

"There." He released her, doing up his trousers as Éponine felt to her knees.

"The next time you come with the Patron-Minette to a robbery, you will obey everything we tell you. There will not be a repeat of tonight's heist."

She could only sob, and feel the trickles of blood making their way down her legs and her neck.

"Now you feel used and degraded. I hope you enjoy it."

Then he left her in the dark, filthy alley.

Neither knew that she would be dead at the barricade in two days, shot by a National Guard soldier.


End file.
